Playground

Feels like I have played with various programming stuff over the years. Maybe it is worth documenting and sharing.

Projects that have spun off:

• Oct 2024: Tab Tree Tracker: a Chrome extension that visualizes your browser tab navigation history as an interactive tree structure. Track, analyze, and visualize how your browsing sessions evolve over time.

• Mar 2025: BPM (Beam Propagation Method): a toy Python library for simulating beam propagation in integrated photonics using the Beam Propagation Method (BPM).
  • Try it: huggingface.co/spaces/jwt625/BPM.

• Jun 2025: VoiceModeTranscript: a real-time transcript recorder for ChatGPT voice conversations with dual audio capture, whisper.cpp streaming, and intelligent LLM deduplication.

  • actually works for any mic and system audio transcribing

• Aug 2025: Bay Bridge Traffic Cam: a comprehensive real-time traffic detection and monitoring system for Bay Bridge with Prometheus + Grafana integration and public dashboard access.

  • Dashboard: bay-bridge-traffic.com.
  • Example: YouTube.

• Nov 2025: 3dgs-viewer: simple 3d gaussian splatting viewer based on spark.
  • Try it: outside5sigma.com/3dgs-viewer.

• Nov 2025: GDSJam: Web-based live collaborative GDSII viewer for semiconductor layout visualization.
  • Website: gdsjam.com.

• Dec 2025: psh (Programmable Snippet Helper): a text expansion tool with directive-based syntax for dynamic snippet expansion. Reuse frequently-used prompts for LLMs without repetitive typing. Type ;;d.ne,l2 instead of "be concise, no emoji" every time.

• Jan 2026: Claude Code Inspector: comprehensive tools for analyzing, tracking, and visualizing Claude Code agent workflows. Extract entities from API logs, track agent instances, build workflow DAGs, and visualize with interactive React-based viewer.

• Jan 2026: SLM Guessr: an educational web application for training intuition on Spatial Light Modulator (SLM) phase masks and their corresponding 2D FFT intensity patterns. Features progressive curriculum with 150+ samples across 7 difficulty levels, gallery mode, and quiz mode.
  • Try it: outside5sigma.com/SLM-Guessr.

• Feb 2026: WebSpice: a browser-based SPICE circuit simulator with a minimal LTSpice-like GUI. Runs entirely client-side using NGSpice compiled to WebAssembly.
  • Try it: outside5sigma.com/WebSpice.

• Mar 2026: Multipole Cow: reproduction of the spherical-harmonic surface expansion from Higher multipoles of the cow (Section III.1). The libigl benchmark cow is flowed to a near star-shaped shell along the signed-distance gradient, fitted with spherical harmonics up to l = 24, and reconstructed as one OBJ mesh per order. Includes a Three.js viewer to orbit each order or compare all in a grid.

• Apr 2026: USGS Minerals And Infrastructure Atlas: a static interactive atlas for exploring USGS National Minerals Information Center regional GIS releases across Africa, China, Indo-Pacific, Latin America & Caribbean, and Southwest Asia.
  • Try it: jwt625.github.io/USGS_Minerals_Infra_Atlas.

• May 2026: IEEE 802.3 AI / High-Speed Ethernet Cache: a static browser and local cache for IEEE 802.3 public materials relevant to AI scale-up, AI scale-out, high-speed Ethernet, P802.3dj, E4AI, 200G/lane MMF, P802.3ds, and 400G/lane signaling.
  • Try it: outside5sigma.com/ieee802_3dj_browser.

• May 2026: Optical DSP Link Visualizations: browser-based educational visualizations for optical DSP and SerDes concepts, including payload/FEC/PAM4 mapping, Tx precompensation, SerDes/DAC, optical channel impairment, CDR timing, Rx equalization, and recovered payload flow.
  • Try it: outside5sigma.com/optical-dsp-link.

• Jun 2026: 2D EO Cross-Section Solver Prototype: browser-first electro-optic modulator cross-section solver with YAML-configured geometry, 2D electrostatic extraction, tensor-permittivity RF assembly, optical mode solving, field visualization, and Python reference tests.

• Aug 2026: Nonuniform Thermally Chirped FBG: coupled-mode / transfer-matrix reconstruction of the heated-spectrum figure (Fig. 5a) from an all-fiber microheater paper in Optics Express (2026), with a semi-analytic cylindrical-fin temperature model. The hot-spot temperature profile is recovered by inverting six digitized heated spectral envelopes; identifiability limits are documented in the model notes.

• Aug 2026: Photonics Lineage: evidence-graded, regenerable person-level genealogy of the photonics industry (172 organizations, 288 people, 556 edges, 282 sources in the current canonical set), with a founder-lineage Sankey view. Each claim carries a source URL and an evidence grade; only A/B-grade evidence enters the default graph.

• Sep 2026: PHIELDWORKS (Coherent Factorio): desktop-browser factory game about turning an industrial network into a controlled wave system. Wire emitters and phase tuners, hold field on target, defend the outpost, and commission a reusable blueprint. Runs fully client-side (Vite + TypeScript).

• Sep 2026: Fruit-Fly CBC: a sparse recurrent reservoir built on the MaleCNS fruit-fly connectome that learns to phase-lock and steer a simulated coherent-beam-combining laser array, then tracks a second virtual fly as a moving target. Three.js bench with a far-field view; simulation and art only, no physical laser interface.

• Sep 2026: Mode Overlap: intuition trainer for photonic mode matching in the style of SLM Guessr. Estimate overlap and mismatch loss for Gaussian mode pairs, with a gallery, a 20-question speedrun and practice mode. Waveguide modes are solved in-browser (experimental scalar quasi-TE); the full-vector 2D backend is still pending.
  • Try it: outside5sigma.com/mode-guessr.

• Sep 2026: Power versus Mass: log-log comparison of whole-body or system power against mass for 40 animals, compute systems, spacecraft and transportation, with idle and peak endpoints, battery / SOFC / propellant specific-power guides and off-scale arrows. Data, provenance and estimate flags live in one JSON file that drives the plot.